Zork postmortem planned for GDC 2014

We're used to getting post-mortems maybe a year after game launches, where developers can talk about what went right and what went wrong. It's a little unusual to present a talk some 24 years after the game's launch - but this game is iconic text adventure Zork, so we're okay with that.

The original Zork

Dave Lebling, co-founder of Zork developer Infocom will be appearing at this year's GDC in San Francisco, promising to shed light on the creation of one of the world's most influential games.

Now working at BAE Systems as a Senior Principal Engineer, Lebling co-authored the first three Zork games, as well as other classic text adventures, and is known as the creator of the Grue.

His speech will touch on the creation of Zork for both mainframe and microcomputer, coding a text parser and experimenting with self-publishing in the early 80s.

We have seen the text adventure popping up in all sorts of places in recent years - in the Museum of Modern Art, on a typewriter and even inside Call of Duty - but the classic text adventure is becoming a dying breed. Will Lebling's talk breathe new life into the influencial genre?